[comp.text.tex] help - *.bst files

llew@wpi.WPI.EDU (Lew Yan Voon) (04/24/91)

i need to modify existing style files for bibliographic
database. below is the text of a note i sent to my local
guru. unfortunately, he hasn't used the database. can
anybody help me? thanks. just need dome general ideas or
explanations.

-------------------

hi john,

hope you can help me with style files for  biblio.

i'm using bibtex. actually i'm accessing it via a software
called 'btt' which i pulled out from c.t.t.
however, i need to modify the style file (*.bst) being used.
i looked at /usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/alpha.bst and had no
idea what was going on. can you tell me what language on
earth is it written in? a friend of mine said that it wasn't
C. nor does it seem to be tex, at least i couldn't locate a
description from the texbook. e.g. there are commands like
FUNCTION and EXECUTE. also there are MACROS but they don't
seem to be read or something from my *.bib file.
i need to change some of the text formatting and styles. do
you have some ideas how this might be done?

thanks,
lok

leland@cs.columbia.edu (Lee Woodbury) (04/24/91)

In article <1991Apr23.192138.1277@wpi.WPI.EDU> llew@wpi.WPI.EDU (Lew Yan Voon) writes:
>      ...i need to modify the style file (*.bst) being used.
>i looked at /usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/alpha.bst and had no
>idea what was going on. can you tell me what language on
>earth is it written in?

The bibtex(1) man page describes the postfix stack language used
in the .bst files.

Leland Woodbury
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jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu (James Darrell McCauley) (04/25/91)

In article <1991Apr24.153925.25696@cs.columbia.edu>, leland@cs.columbia.edu (Lee Woodbury) writes:
|> In article <1991Apr23.192138.1277@wpi.WPI.EDU> llew@wpi.WPI.EDU (Lew Yan Voon) writes:
|> >      ...i need to modify the style file (*.bst) being used.
|> >i looked at /usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/alpha.bst and had no
|> >idea what was going on. can you tell me what language on
|> >earth is it written in?

May I suggest checking labrea.stanford.edu:~/tex/bibtex/btxhak.tex.
I successfully wrote a BibTeX style file (asaetr.bst) using this 
information and the standard examples.

It's really not that bad once you get into it, but I admit it
does look pretty cryptic ;-)

-- 
James Darrell McCauley, Grad Res Asst, Spatial Analysis Lab 
Dept of Ag Engr, Texas A&M Univ, College Station, TX 77843-2117, USA
(jdm5548@diamond.tamu.edu, jdm5548@tamagen.bitnet)